


Home for Halloween

by inalasahl



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Colorado Avalanche, Haunted Houses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8442199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inalasahl/pseuds/inalasahl
Summary: Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene visit a neighborhood haunted house.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melk24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melk24/gifts).



When Gabriel got home from the Avs one-game road trip to Arizona and back, his street had already begun transforming itself into a Halloween wonderland. A motley assortment of grinning gap-toothed pumpkins expressions lined up outside every gate, even his own. Gabriel vaguely remembered giving his new neighbors permission to decorate the outside of his home a couple of weeks ago and supposed they'd made similar arrangements with the others on the street. Cobwebs hung down over every wall and fence liberally sprinkled with an assortment of large spiders and insects. Some clever person had even wrapped webbing in a couple of man-shaped bulges, as if the spiders had grown tired of dining on insects and turned to humans. Down the street there was some kind of bubbling cauldron in the front of one house from which a thick pink cloud emanated, slowly blanketing the street like a fog. A sign in front of the cauldron advertised an open haunted house tonight and tomorrow evening.

Gabriel was reluctantly impressed and hoped the fog was non-toxic. Also, that his neighbors would be as good as cleaning up afterward as they were at organizing the whole thing. They were sure to get a ton of trick-or-treaters with a street this inviting, and he made mental plans to run out to the store again before tomorrow and get some extra candy to add to what he'd already purchased. It was one thing for ordinary people to run out, but too many fans came by his house, because it was his house, and the child inside him who'd idolized Peter Forsberg wanted to make sure that his fans were left with similar positive memories of himself.

There was an envelope taped to his door with a note from his new neighbors, reminding him to check out the haunted house and telling him to bring a friend, with random, stray marks around friend. Maybe for emphasis? He supposed he’d have to go in the spirit of neighborliness, unless he wanted his new neighbors to complain about him on twitter or something.

He thought about making MacKinnon or Zadorov go with him. The young guys were used to getting ordered around, but it hardly seemed fair. Dutchy would know what to do. Gabriel didn’t often fool himself, but he was still pretending not to notice that calling Dutchy made him alternately nervous and happy in a way that speaking to none of his other teammates did.

* * *

Somehow, Dutchy had gotten the impression that Gabriel was inviting him to the haunted house instead of asking advice on whether he really had to bring someone. Gabriel didn’t have the nerve to correct him, especially when he was pathetic enough to seize on any excuse to spend more time with him. This was Gabriel’s sixth season in the NHL, and he’d mostly resigned himself to the fact that his feelings for Matt Duchene weren’t going anywhere.

“I really appreciate this,” Gabriel said, as they walked up to the house. “My neighbors …”

“It’s fine,” Dutchy said. He turned his head and seemed to be studiously examining a tissue paper ghost dangling from twine. “I always like hanging out with you.” He pushed the doorbell. It rang with a blood-curling scream.

The door swung wide with a creak and a teenage girl dressed in a black cape with fake fangs in her mouth gestured to a table full of glasses filled with a red liquid. “Vould you like to drink some blllllooodd?” she intoned in a loud voice. In a more normal tone, she leaned in and stage-whispered, “Ones on the left are wine; on the right, sparkling cran cider.”

“Aw, don’t tell them,” a little boy with a hatchet in his head popped out of seeming nowhere to chastise the vampire.

“Oh my God,” the vampire said. “You’re supposed to be helping grandpa! If you don’t get out of here,”I’m going to kill you.” She pulled up short, and looked at Gabriel and Matt. “I mean,” and her voice changed back to her vampiric intonation. “I’m goink to killllll youuuuu.” She paused and pointed down a hallway. “Down there,” she said, returning to the faux stage whisper. She took off after the little boy and Gabriel had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. 

Matt wasn’t so lucky and let out a huge giggle snort. It was nice to see him smiling without the least bit of self-consciousness. Gabriel grabbed two glasses of wine. “Congratulations on keeping us in a playoff spot with those two goals yesterday,” Gabriel said, as he handed one to Matt.

"I have good wingers," Dutchy said, knocking his shoulder against Gabriel's.

"It helps to have a good center to pass to," he replied. Dutchy's answering smile was like watching the sun break over the mountaintops. He didn't blush quite the way he had when Gabriel was a rookie, but he still had an air about him for all that he was two years older that made Gabriel think things he shouldn't. Captains weren't supposed to have favorites.

An artificially narrow hallway had been created with cardboard walls, dimly lit by the occasional strip of fairy lights, but the two of them did their best to fit their hockey-sized bodies into the space without knocking the walls down. Ahead of them, Gabriel could see some openings cut into the cardboard. A fur-covered arm poked out of the nearest one laying against the side. A loud voice that he recognized as the female half of the couple that had moved in came through the thin walls, sotto voce. “What’s taking so long? Are they trying to finish their drinks?” Louder, she called out to the two of them, “You can bring your glasses into the tunnel!”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Dutchy replied and the arm leapt into into action, clawing at the air as ridiculous growling noises issued from the opening. This time Gabriel couldn’t hold back and buried his face into Dutchy’s shoulder to stifle his laughter.

The next opening revealed a glowing ghost holding her own severed head who shouted “boo” at them.

“It’s nice to see you so relaxed,” Matt said. “You seemed a little upset on the flight home yesterday?”

Gabriel wasn’t the kind of guy to get upset over articles saying he should be stripped of the C or traded (at least he wasn’t the type to admit it, even to himself), but it’d take someone more oblivious than he was not to notice how much such articles had proliferated over the summer. "It shouldn't have been that close," he said. "Not against the Coyotes. We need to be better. Not you," he said, risking a quick chaste kiss to the back of Dutchy’s neck lest he set off Matt’s tendency to get too much inside his head and beat himself up over things that weren't his fault. "Me, I need to be better."

“Psst.” The two of them turned back around to the opening they just passed. A long glowing arm was poking through the cutout window to the ghost and beckoning them back. “Haven’t you boys been to a haunted house before? You shouldn’t be walking single file. Huddle up for protection.”

An elderly man dressed as a lumberjack poked his head through an opening ahead. “Don’t be shy,” he said. “This is Denver.”

“Let’s not disappoint them,” Dutchy whispered into his ear. Gabriel didn’t get what was going on, but he let Matt press them in close to each other and wrap his arms around him. "Four points in seven games, Landy," Matt took the opportunity to keep whispering privately, pressing his mouth almost to Gabriel’s ear. "That's not nothing."

“But I’m —“

“If you say you’re the captain —“

Gabriel swallowed back the rest of his sentence.

“We’re a team, Landy.”

“I know,” he said. Matt rolled his eyes. “What?” Matt raised an eyebrow at him.

“Honestly?”

“An A should always be honest with his captain!” Landy said, and then clapped his hand over his mouth in horror.

Matt glared at him and rubbed his hand on the poor ear that had been shouted in. “You don’t always act like you do know. I just wish — I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You’re a special per—player, Gabe.”

“You know I feel the same way about you,” Gabriel replied. “Besides, our point totals have been almost identical the last three years, so if I’m special, you are too.”

Matt laughed and squeezed Gabriel’s hand in agreement.

As they moved down the tunnel and passed the lumberjack, he had his hand wrapped around the handle of the hatchet on the boy from earlier, as if he was the one to have just buried it there. The boy wasn’t in the least bit trying to stay in character. He wrinkled his nose and with a deep downtrodden sigh asked, “are they going to start kissing like the last couple?”

Gabriel suddenly got the point of why the walls were so narrow, and now that his attention had been called to it, he got exactly why they were walking pressed together and rather embarrassingly, his body had started to take notice, as well. He shuffled forward as fast as he could and hoped his face wasn’t quite as flaming as it felt. Eventually, the tunnel opened out through a side door and into a yard party, which Gabriel didn’t dare stick around for.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said softly, trying to keep his voice low and private. He could feel a flush creeping over his cheeks as they walked back to his and hoped his arousal wasn't obvious. "I didn't know haunted house was, um, a couples' thing."

"Oh," Dutchy said. There wasn't a lot of artifice about him, and Gabriel rarely had a hard time reading his mood. "They aren't always."

Gabriel searched his face. He sounded muted and down all of a sudden. "You're upset."

Matt bit his lip. He blushed. "You said we should be honest with each other." Gabriel nodded, sensing something very serious. They had reached his door now and he fumbled with the lock. Dutchy grabbed his elbow and spun him sideways to hold his eyes. "Don't let this be weird, promise? You can just forget it tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," Gabriel said, not knowing what else to say and turning back to the door.

Matt took a deep breath. "I was hoping you did know — what kind of a haunted house it was. I guess I was pretending I was the kind of person you'd want to bring to a place like that."

Gabriel froze, door half ajar. "You promised," Matt muttered.

Gabriel reminded himself to breathe and practically shoved Matt inside. Gabriel could see him beginning to simultaneously panic and recoil, and Gabriel needed them to be inside, to be in private, and sped up his pace, pulling Matt out of the way, so he could kick the door shut.

Dutchy didn't say anything else, but his eyes were closed, and he looked backed up against the wall like he was bracing himself for a blow. "Dutchy," Gabriel said, resting his hands gently against Matt's arms, in case he wanted to move. _"Matt,_ would kissing you make it weird?”

Matt’s eyes flew open. “You? You— You!” And then he launched himself at Gabriel, taking his mouth in a hungry kiss that didn’t gentle for several heartbeats.

“You’re the only person I’d want to take to a place like that,” Gabriel said when he had the chance. 

“The world’s most boring haunted house?”

“After this, I think it must be the world’s best.”

Matt smiled and pulled Gabriel into another kiss. “Kind of depends on what happens after this, doesn’t it?”

“As my center, you should know by now how willing I am to go to the dirty areas.”

Matt groaned, but held his hand out. “Then lead on, Captain.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rated for kissing, brief references to pretend violence.


End file.
